What problems do young people who seek sexual health counseling come with: “fear of a potential pregnancy”, the most common

“Our goal is to help the person in their specific situation, but also in the long term. Many come to us with specific, hidden questions, shameful for them, which feel very urgent,” says Roxana Radu. She is 31 years old and is a sexual health counselor at the Sexul vs Barza NGO.

• Sex education counseling is an educational and support program, which aims to provide correct information about reproductive health, relationships with other people and sexuality.

Roxana Radu is a specialist clinical psychologist, with training and courses in unifying experiential psychotherapy and psychosexology. He also did trainings to work with vulnerable people – young people from the social protection system or people with HIV.

At Sexul vs Barza, sexual health counseling focused on two things, according to Roxana Radu: the large and young online audience – which she informs in videos and social media posts – and the need for sex education.

What does the sexual health counseling service look like at Sexul vs Barza

Every day from Monday to Friday, from 12:00 to 14:00, young people can have free counseling with Roxana Radu, at Sexul vs Barza. The service has existed in this form since 2019.

“In a social context where sexuality is often a taboo, we approach feelings of shame and guilt with an open and appreciative attitude, transforming shame from an obstacle into a function of protecting dignity and personal boundaries,” Roxana Radu describes the sexual health counseling service offered by Sexul vs Barza.

She explains that all the people who write to them are in vulnerable situations, but they can talk about their problems anonymously.

“Our goal is to help the person in their specific situation, but also in the long term. Many first come to us with specific, hidden questions that are shameful for them and that feel very urgent, but our goal is to try to better understand the general condition of the person and what is actually grinding them, at the level of values, but also at the level of resources”, adds the expert.

According to the association's figures, almost 1,000 people ask the Sexul vs Barza organization for help with sexual health every year.

The gender gap is “overwhelming”: in 2025, most beneficiaries were girls and women (73%), 84% of whom were under 25.

The most common problem is “fear of a potential pregnancy”, and discussions of “contraception”, “protection” and “menstruation” accounted for 43% of the questions asked.

“For those who were explicitly afraid of a pregnancy, the fears come in the context of ignorance about anatomy, reproduction, in the context of a first time, in the context, sometimes, of a situation of sexual coercion, therefore of sexual violence, combined with the fear of going to the doctor, ignorance of the existing services or the lack of services near them”, explains the NGO.

The reproductive system, I skipped biology class

When asked what motivated her to prepare to be a sex education counselor, Roxana Radu says that she enjoyed a “positive vision of sexuality” in her own family. She had discussions about physiology and intercourse with her mother, but also about abuse, pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.

It wasn't the same at school, though. “I didn't have sex education class, but I know that in the 7th grade, when I had reached the reproductive system, the teacher didn't teach the lesson, but made us observe. It was a practice,” adds Roxana Radu.

She remembers that when she was in elementary school and high school, she received pads from various associations, telling them about menstruation. But only with the girls, the boys went out to play football.

How sexual health counseling is done in family planning clinics

Sexual health counseling is “partially” done in the network of family planning clinics.

Patients – insured or not – can go without a referral and at no cost, but family planning is a specialization “about to die” in Romania, according to doctor Cecilia Burlacu, who has been working for 32 years at the family planning office at Pantelimon Hospital.

At the country level, 120 family planning offices were operational in 2023, according to a response from the Ministry of Health, for Freedom.

“72,000 patients per year would be helped, at no cost, by increasing the addressability of family planning offices through the telemedicine system,” claims Sexul vs Barza, which proposes an online family planning method.

Model countries for Romania

Germany and Estonia are two countries in the European Union that implement reproductive health counseling services well, explains the expert in the field.

In Germany, there is an independent professional association, financed, however, largely from the state budget, “Pro-familia”, which works in the field of sexuality, couple relations and family planning.

The association has 16 regional associations, in each state, with almost 200 counseling centers. The teams are made up of specialists in psychology, social pedagogy, medicine and law and offer information on pregnancy, family planning, sex education, partnership and divorce, as well as counseling on sexual minorities.

A similar model exists in Estonia, which since the 90s introduced a system of sex education combined with family planning.

Sexual education has been mandatory since 2001, each student receives 24 hours of sexual education distributed during the 5th, 6th and 7th grades, and the subject is taught by experts from outside the school.

“The program is comprehensive, addressing the cognitive, emotional and psychosocial aspects of sexuality, and has proven to be highly cost-effective, particularly in reducing HIV infections and other negative indicators of sexual health,” notes the organization Sex vs Barza.

The “In the (K)now: Reproductive Rights in Romania” project is carried out by the SEXUL vs BARZA Association and aims to raise awareness of reproductive rights as fundamental values ​​of the European Union. Hotnews is a media partner of the Association SEXUL vs. STORK in this project. The project is financed by the European Union. However, the opinions expressed belong to those cited and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the European Union or The Netherlands Helsinki Committee. Neither the European Union nor The Netherlands Helsinki Committee can be held responsible for, nor had access to, the content of the article prior to publication.